


The City of Shadows

by laragazzamagica



Series: Stars and spies [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 'cause Cassian is the perfect Le Carrè's (anti)hero, Aliens because this is Star Wars!, Angst, Character Death, Except for the first one, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Le Carrè's works, Mentions of genocide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Spy Stuff, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Twi'leks, Unresolved Romantic Tension, that's like in the first page so be careful, the early chapters are unrepentant fluff, too many secondary characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laragazzamagica/pseuds/laragazzamagica
Summary: Cassian, only just healed from the injuries sustained during the Battle of Scarif, is assigned a new mission that could destroy him. It will fall on Jyn and Bodhi to save him and take him out of his own darkness.Aliens, children, blood thirsty dictators, beautiful slaves, (very diluted) spy stuff, and all that jazz!





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Same story as "La città delle ombre", only in a different language.

_On the table in front of him lay the comlink and the lullaby pill. He had been staring at them for ages, unable to move._

_He had chosen death._

_The cyanide pill in front of him would undoubtedly be enough to grant him a swift and essentially painless end, but his hand stubbornly refused to move. Death had been his faithful companion that had accompanied him since childhood, following him, shadowing him, and he had always felt He would welcome him gladly into its warm embrace. Now that he was staring at Him by choice, though, for the first time in his life, he felt actually terrified of dying._

_He tore his eyes away from the pill and took the comlink in his hand. He slowly turned it between his fingers, grazing on the buttons, the lines, the tiny screen that showed the time. He lay his index finger on the right button, the one that would send to the ship the signal of imminent and unavoidable capture and he lingered for a moment before pushing it. The light metal opposed a minimal resistance and for a heartbeat, his feverish mind hoped that the message could not be sent and that someone would come to save him from himself, but the button gave in and the circuit made contact. He watched with a horrified thrill as the LED signaling that the message had been sent lit up_

_It was done, there was no going back now. He had asked his dearest friends to leave him alone to die. He abhorred the idea of lying to Jyn, but he would rather have her and Bodhi run away believing him dead than confess his failure, because he was sure that with it he would reveal his crimes, he would speak of the twenty-seven faces that every night tore him from sleep, and they would despise him as he despised himself. And yet, he would give anything right now to again have the privilege to speak one last time with his only true friends, which he had renounced just a few seconds earlier._

_One day they would probably find out that he had lied, that he had died in a relatively safe place and not cornered into a dead end by agents of the Empire, but they would be safe by then, away from the dangers of this infernal planet. Jyn would hate him anyway for having finally abandoned her, but he had never believed in any kind of afterlife and her posthumous hate scared him far less than imagining her face if she had found out who he really was. One way or another, he was destined to lose her and he would not, he could not live without her anymore._

_He let go of the comlink that clattered on the tabletop. By now Bodhi, as per his orders, had to have already completed lift-off. Jyn was no longer on this planet. She was further away from him than she ever had been since he had met her and every second that passed increased the distance. He felt like a piece of his soul had left with her, he felt heartbroken and he had trouble breathing around the lump in his throat. He had no reason left to waver. He had to act and he had to do it now, or he would fail this, too._

_With shaky hands, he lifted the pill. It felt almost ironic to be his own last victim. Maybe this way his twenty-seven ghosts would be avenged and would finally found eternal peace. Out of the window, the sun was low on the horizon. It set on fire the roofs and the thriving vegetation of New Sabanna, heralding a breathtaking sunset. He desperately wished to wait some more, to see the sunset one last time, but that could not be: he had taken hours to take the lullaby in his hand and he was sure that he would not be brave enough to do it a second time, and that after seeing his last sunset he would want to see one more sunrise. And then one more sunset. And so on._

_It would have been so much better if he had died on Scarif in Jyn’s arms, his dearest, beautiful Jyn, but the Force had decided against it and had sent Bodhi to him to force him to live. But now Jyn was gone, Bodhi had taken her away. Today he would be the one to choose his destiny in spite of the Force._

_He gathered his courage and lifted the lullaby to his lips._


	2. Anything, for a slice of cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes of daily life in the Rebel Alliance, part 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When interviewed, Riz Ahmed often calls people "Bro", so I decided that Bodhi should do it with people he's comfortable with, too. And since Bodhi is a muffin, Cassian let himself be influenced. 
> 
> Oh, I just realized: Spoiler warning for Rebels season 3!

**Fleet of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Star Cruiser Arcturus, 52 days after the battle of Yavin**

“Careful...”

“I’m always careful.”

“Doesn’t seem like that to me. You’re always reckless, Jyn.”

“Cassian, cut it out, I can handle this. I’m not stupid, I just need silence.”

“I never said you’re stupid.”

“Be quiet.”

“If you need help, I could...”

“Shut up!”

Jyn bit her lip thoughtfully. She needed to concentrate as hard as she could, the situation was explosive and Cassian chatting away beside her absolutely didn’t help. Despite his sudden silence, she really couldn’t see a way out, the tension was killing her.

Nothing could be done, unless…

She sneezed violently, covering her face with one hand, mumbling quietly something about dust. Finally, there was her way out. 

She threw triumphantly three cards on the table. “Queen’s Escort, I won!”

Cassian glanced at the cards, then at her and smirk appeared on his deadpan face. “You sure?” He casually lowered the three cards left in his hand. “Sabacc. I won. For the sixth consecutive time. ”

Jyn gaped at the cards. “ _ Karabast.  _ Darn it. Yours is just luck.” She bit violently on the piece of cake she had chosen to have for breakfast. That bloody man had beaten her again, he had distracted her with his caramel-colored eyes and she had forgotten which cards had already been played. Moreover, he’d used his spy face, which always made things worse. She seriously pondered kicking him under the table.

He gathered the cards and started to shuffle them. “After six victories, I’d say that’s skill rather than luck. Anyway, it’s amazing how you manage to lose even when you cheat.”

“What did you just say?”

Such a claim, made almost at rush hour in the middle of a canteen crowded with breakfasting rebels, could cause her to be banned from any kind of bet in the whole Alliance. She glanced around to ensure no one had heard, but luckily there was just Bodhi sleeping beside her and the couple sitting at the table closest to theirs was too occupied arguing and throwing tableware at each other to have heard anything. A fork flew in their direction and landed on Bodhi’s head, who woke with a start. “I’m awake! I’m… awake… ehm.” Still drowsy, he looked around and noticed his still untouched breakfast on the tray in front of him. “I wasn’t awake, was I?”

“No.”, they answered in unison. Cassian was unsuccessfully trying to keep a straight face and Jyn was chuckling, since the fork was now peeking out of the pilot’s messy hair like an antenna.

“And you didn’t think to wake me up to play Sabacc? What kind of friends are you, guys?”

“The kind that prefers not losing all of their money to you,  _ hermano _ .” This time, Cassian didn’t even try not to smile.

“And you didn’t look like someone who got a lot of sleep last night”, added Jyn.

“Yeah, that’s possible.”

Cassian was suddenly serious again. “Nightmares again?”

“No, this time it was Kaleb’s fault.”

“Kaleb?”

“He’s my new roommate. He snores and he’s  _ so _ loud.”

“Do you want me to have a someone else assigned to you?”

Bodhi visibly stiffened at Cassian’s words. “No, thanks. We’re already exploiting you enough, with the bed and board and the clothes and everything else. I don’t want you to be stripped of your rank or something because you keep making requests for us. I have to handle this on my own, I have already changed too many roommates.”

Cassian, having realized his misstep, lowered his gaze and didn’t reply.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer, bro”, Bodhi mumbled, before attacking his raisins cake, or rather the pale synthetic imitation of the real thing found in the canteen. The reason for his frequent moves were the nightmares caused by the memories of Bor Gullet and the Death Star. In the past month, since the Alliance had managed to redistribute part of its personnel to smaller planetary bases, Bodhi had already been kicked out by three roommates, who had complained because his nighttime cries didn’t let them sleep. 

The pilot had been born on Jedha and his whole family had been there when the Death Star had been used for the first time: the Empire had orphaned him as it had done to Jyn and Cassian. Because of his close encounter with Bor Gullet, who had slipped into his head, taken every memory out of it and put them back at random, it had taken him a couple of weeks to realize that the annihilation of Jedha meant that his family was dead. Sometimes, when they were both melancholy, Bodhi told Jyn about his mother, who had given him her passion for flying, about his sister, who had big black eyes that shined like Kyber, and about Galen, whose friendship had changed him forever. Often, during these recollections, the pilot broke down and it fell onto Jyn to comfort him as well as she could, laying a hand on his shoulder until he felt better. They had lost track of time more than once this way, only realizing their lateness when Cassian, worried because of their absence, had come to look for them.

Smiling again, Bodhi spoke: “So, to recap, what did I miss?”

“Ah, nothing out of the ordinary. Jyn’s a cheat at cards.”

“Business as usual, then.”

“How dare you!” Jyn couldn’t help laughing as she threw a fake punch to both of them. She stole a piece of Bodhi’s cake out of spite. She turned to Cassian again and she did her best to become indignant. “How dare you accuse me of such a deed? In front of Bodhi, no less! I’m a woman of honour, I would never ever cheat.”

Cassian grinned and made a theatrical hand gesture towards her. “Are you? Then take off the jacket.”

_ ‘Karabast, karabast and karabast again. Never bet money against a spy _ .’ She rose her head in defiance. “I don’t want to, I’m cold.” 

“Of course you are.”

“I’m not used to the cold of interstellar travel. Your precious Alliance saves so much on heating that I even got a cold.”

“That’s so weird, you only sneeze when you need a card, which then miraculously appears. And you need the jacket only when you play Sabacc.”

“It’s my lucky jacket!”

“I seem to remember that it used to be one of my jackets, that one day magically disappeared from my wardrobe.”

And Jyn had enjoyed so much his startled face when she had worn it for the first time that it had repaid all of her efforts to hack into the security system of the wing where the officers’ quarters were. “It looks better on me than on you.”

For a second Cassian grasped for words as if he’d been on the verge to agree with her. “You use it to cheat, anyway!”

“That’s not true! How can you doubt my word?”

“I always doubt it, in these cases.”

“You’re lucky I like you, you sad excuse for a rebel, otherwise you would be facing the consequenc… Ehi!” While her brain was busy elaborating a reply to their bickering, he threw a hand towards her, with a lightning-fast movement slipped it in the inside pocket of the jacket and took it out full of cards. 

“What about these? I don’t recall them being there when the jacket was still in my possession.”

“I found them. In my room. While I was cleaning up. They were under my bed.”

Bodhi, hearing this, started laughing wildly, running the risk of suffocating himself with his cappuccino, while Cassian smirked again and shook his head. Jyn tried desperately to be angry at him, but it was an impossible feat when he looked at her that way. She settled for throwing him another fake punch on the arm. It seemed too light a punishment, but the lingering smell of warm coffee and freshly baked cakes (be they synthetic or not) made her feel less combative than usual. 

All in all, Jyn rather liked her life on the  _ Arcturus _ , one of the jewels of the rebel fleet. She knew very well that her and Bodhi’s situation was only temporary and would not last much longer: neither of them had been sent on missions because Cassian still hadn’t completely recovered from the battle of Scarif and she had made it clear that she and the pilot wouldn’t accept to work with anyone else. Draven, who was still unfortunately Cassian’s superior, had apparently accepted it, maybe because all four of the messengers he had sent to order her and Bodhi to report for duty with this or that operative had returned with a broken nose and the answer that neither of them had ever officially enlisted, so  _ technically  _ they didn’t have to follow anyone’s orders. She had told Cassian nothing about this. She feared, no, she was certain that he would not approve.

She suspected that they were being allowed to use the Rebellion’s resources undisturbed without giving anything back not only because of Cassian’s influence, but also because Mon Mothma and princess Leia had spoken in their favour several times, even though there were members on the Council (led by Draven, she was sure of it) that called her a troublemaking thief. 

Like every other morning, they patiently waited for Bodhi to finish his now cold breakfast, entertaining themselves by watching the bickering couple, that had switched from tableware to chairs.

“Andor!” The unexpected call had all three of them turn towards the speaker, who was a blond human, very tall and muscular, with light blue eyes and a pair of impressive sideburns, walking swiftly towards them.

Cassian rose to his feet and nodded in greeting. “Kallus.”

“How are you, mate? I must say, I really don’t mind at all that you’ve managed not to get killed yet.”

With a cordial grin, Cassian shook hands with the man, who towered over him by at least half a foot, and gestured towards the others. “Well, thanks for that. Do you know Jyn Erso and Bodhi Rook? This is Alexsandr Kallus, he is of rebel intelligence, too.”

It had already happened over the past two months, but every time it amazed Jyn: Cassian was radiant, happy to be able to introduce them because he was proud of them, of her. He was the first person she had ever met who was proud of being acquainted with her: her given name had been hidden for most of her life, cursed by the association with her father or with Saw Gerrera’s partisans, and yet now Cassian Andor, Captain of the Rebel Alliance, hero of Scarif, was keen on making it known to everyone they met.

The newcomer, whom Jyn had already nicknamed  _ Muttonchops _ for obvious reasons, greeted them respectfully. “Mister Rook. Miss Erso. It’s a pleasure to meet you. ”

Bodhi, shocked and, if possible, more appalled than she was, still with half a slice of cake in his hand, stuttered mechanically: “I-I’m just the pilot…”

“Come on, Mister Rook, you are not just a pilot. We both know how hard and dangerous it is to defect from the Empire. It takes a lot of guts. You have my deepest respect for this.”

“So, you also...” Bodhi swallowed.

“Yes”, Cassian explained, “our Kallus spent years and years hunting us down before he decided that he liked us rebel scum better, after all.”

Kallus sneered: “I never retracted the ‘scum’ part, though.”

This was enough to make Cassian laugh. “That really breaks my heart!”

Up to this point, the morning had given her a disastrous defeat at Sabacc, lots of cake for breakfast, a fork stuck in Bodhi’s hair, Muttonchops with his hilarious facial hair and a hearty laugh from Cassian, which was probably the most beautiful sound in the galaxy. All in all, the day was starting quite well. Since Bodhi was still stunned, Jyn stole another tiny piece of his cake, because good omens are never enough.  

 

 

When Kallus headed towards the headquarters of Intelligence, Cassian followed him, limping slightly because of the leg that had been taken out of the cast just a few days before. Since the early days of his recovery, he had started loitering around the offices where the headquarters of Allied Intelligence had been established, drawn inexorably in like  by a black hole, and in the past few weeks, since when his ribs had stopped bothering him, he had spent increasingly more time helping however he could in maintaining the network of spies scattered around the galaxy. At first, he’d had to use computers and datapads with only one hand because the other arm had been in a cast. It wasn’t exactly easy, but he had dealt with far worse situations.

He liked Kallus: the man was clever, methodical, shamelessly cynical. Unfortunately for Cassian, though, he decided to make small talk on the way. “Now I get why you went to risk your neck on Scarif.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Andor, she’s an incredibly pretty girl, only a fool could deny it.”

Had Cassian not been a seasoned spy, he would have blushed. Instead, he automatically put on his impenetrable “spy face”, the one Jyn abhorred, flushing all emotions from his face. “That was not the reason why I did it.”

“It wasn’t? Why did you do it, then? You’ve never struck me as the reckless type.”

Cassian pondered on it. Why’d he done it? Because it had to be done. Because it was the only, though faint, hope to give the Rebellion a chance for survival. Because without the Rebellion the past twenty years of his life would have lost meaning and he would just have been a monster. He told Kallus all of this, but left out the last motive: because Jyn needed someone to count on and he’d already let her down once, he never intended to do it again. With a pang of pain to the chest that had nothing to do with his newly healed ribs, he added: “We’re just friends, anyway.”

“Is that so? Interesting.” Kallus mused silently for a few steps. “Would you mind if I invited her to drink something?”

His heart lost a beat. ‘ _ Yes. _ ’ “No, of course not.” His guts had tied themselves into a knot and his breakfast had suddenly turned into a boulder inside his stomach. He hoped that his turmoil hadn’t seeped into his voice. 

Kallus was strangely embarrassed and he had started talking again. Cassian had to take a moment before he was able to concentrate on his words again. “...I mean, she seems to have no problems socializing with imperial deserters… And I knew already that she’s an extraordinary woman, everyone’s talking about it… But man, no one had told me she’s as beautiful as the angels on Iego...”

Even though he would have liked to shout that Kallus was too old for Jyn, that a twenty years difference was really too much, Cassian forced himself to calm down: Jyn was nothing more than a friend. She was strong, charismatic, clever, incomparably beautiful, as Kallus kept saying, but she was just his friend. That was it. She belonged to nobody, and certainly not to him. If one day she chose she wanted a man, young or old, or a woman, or a droid, or anything else, she would certainly not have to ask him for permission. He kept being friendly to Kallus, but for the rest of the day it was unusually hard for him to concentrate on his duties. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never could remember Kallus's name, so I actually started calling him Muttonchops since he first appeared on Rebels. On a side note, I know a guy who has exactly the same facial hair as Kallus, and he's just as entertaining to look at as the cartoon character.


	3. Mattress, mon amour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes of daily life in the Rebel Alliance, part 2

Bodhi fell to the ground for the umpteenth time. He was pretty sure that before dinnertime his knees would turn a nice shade of blue like that of the mattress beneath him. 

“Wrong! I told you a hundred times, you must not expose your flank! Let’s go again.”

Like every afternoon, Jyn was trying to teach Bodhi how to defend himself. Lessons took place in a tiny room on the deck reserved for meetings, which Jyn had found empty and unused while loitering around on the second day after the end of the housing emergency. It was so small that a more appropriate name for it would be “big closet”. After the evacuation from Yavin IV, the room, like almost any other area on the ship, had been used as temporary sleeping quarters but it had remained empty since most of the Allied personnel had been allocated to minor planetary bases. It was too small to serve as a meeting room of any kind like the other areas on the deck, too remote from anything else for it to be assigned any other official function. With the addition of a table, a couple of chairs and mattresses on the floor it had become the most beautiful and comfortable private gym Jyn had ever seen. Caught up in the excitement, she had even stolen an old punching bag from the official gym of the starship, justifying her theft in front of Cassian by saying that the punching bag was old, worn and unloved because no one wanted to use it anymore. Cassian had glared at her severely but he hadn’t scolded her nor reported her. Maybe the members of the Council who couldn’t stand her did have a point when they said she was a thief. 

At first, shy and mostly harmless Bodhi had had a hard time coming to terms with the idea of having to beat her, since he was terrified of hurting her, but his hesitation had vanished when Jyn, impatient as always, had unceremoniously knocked him to the ground for the first time. Since then, the pilot had lost count of how many times the same scene had played out. His acquaintance with the old mattress was becoming so intimate that he would soon have to invite it to dinner.

Bodhi whimpered and coiled upon himself. He felt more incompetent than usual. Despite all his efforts, he was having lots of trouble learning the new move Jyn had shown him. The prospect of being thrown to the ground again was completely unappealing to him, so he decided he would remain where he was. The mattress was soft and comfortable, after all. It stank slightly of plastic and old sweat, that was true, but he would love it anyway if only Jyn had left him alone. 

She tapped him insistently on the shoulder. “Come on, get up!”

“No, I don't want to”, he whined, “leave me here to die.”

Jyn sighed deeply to keep her cool and resorted to emotional blackmail. “I’m not a pain like this when you teach me how to fly, though.”

Bodhi would have liked to reply that the progress she was making in the cockpit was much faster than his in the gym, but it would take too much effort. He gathered his strength and pulled up into a seating position, taking his head in his hands. Jyn sprung up, suddenly tense. “Someone’s coming. Do you hear it?”

Yes, he heard it, too. He jumped to his feet, just in time not to be seen on the ground by Muttonchops, who was marching into the room. “Miss Erso, Mister Rook. Good evening.” That man had an incredible ability to find him in his worst moments. 

Without Cassian to vouch for the newcomer, Jyn had stiffened and had unconsciously taken a defensive position in front of Bodhi. “Agent Kallus. Good evening to you, too.”

“I must say, the decor you’ve chosen really suits this room.”

“How did you find us? I mean… Has Cassian told you to come here?”

The cold and self-satisfied smile that flashed on Muttonchops’ lips while he surveyed the room made Bodhi shiver. “Of course not, Miss Erso. I’m a spy, too, finding people is in my job description.” Bodhi had conflicted feelings towards Kallus: on one hand it felt to him that he was the only one who could actually understand the moral dilemmas and the internal conflict he had felt before and after his defection, but on the other Muttonchops looked proud and not very tolerant towards those that, like him, meant next to nothing in the military ranks. 

Jyn had to have realized she had been too aggressive because she tried to relax her shoulders and to adopt a more friendly tone. “I see. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit? If you’re looking for Cassian, I’m afraid he’s not here.”

“Actually, I’ve come to talk to you, Miss Erso.”

Jyn’s eyebrows shot into the sky. “Really? What do you have to talk about?”

“It concerns a personal matter, so to speak.”

“Oh?”

Seemingly uncomfortable for the first time, Muttonchops glanced skeptically at the pilot. “I would rather speak to you in private if that’s possible. No offense, of course, Mister Rook.”

A flicker of challenge passed through Jyn’s eyes, who lifted her chin and replied: “Feel free to talk, I have no secrets with Bodhi.”

“All right, then.” Kallus stepped closer to Jyn and cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. He glanced around once again and continued in a low voice: “Miss Erso, I was wondering if I could have the honor of buying you something to drink. A beverage of your choice in a venue of your choice within the fleet.”

Jyn examined him from head to toe, squinting critically. “You’re asking me out on a date, then.”

“A date, yes, in a way. I would like to be able to offer something better, but you know, one has to make do with what these conditions offer.”

Jyn just stared at him sharply while she lazily unrolled and rerolled the protective bandages she had around her knuckles. Bodhi was certain she would refuse. Her body language clearly said she didn’t feel safe with Kallus. Moreover, since he had known her she had not shown any interest in anyone except in Cassian. Despite her (completely incomprehensible to Bodhi) lack of progress with Cassian, this didn’t mean that...

“I accept.”

‘ _ Wait, what? _ ’ Appalled, Bodhi remained slack-jawed for a second. 

“Very well, I’m very pleased...”

“I accept at one condition: that you manage to beat me in hand-to-hand combat. The first to fall to the ground loses. Only if you manage to win will you have a date with me.”

‘ _ Oh, that’s better. _ ’ This version of Jyn was more familiar to him. Kallus sized her up perplexedly at first, then smugly: Jyn was short and had a seemingly slight build, while he was a big, muscular giant half a meter taller than her. When he nodded, any doubt had disappeared from his face. He clearly expected to win. ‘ _ Oh boy, are you in for a surprise. _ ’

Bodhi dove into a corner, as far as he could from the mattresses and partially hidden by the punching ball, before being hit by mistake. Jyn had started jumping on the spot in order to warm up. As if throwing him to the ground a million times hadn’t been enough. The next morning she would have to go on with her flight lessons and he would take revenge by making her try to land on the flight simulator. Oh, tomorrow he would have so much fun at her expense.

Kallus shrugged off his jacket and kicked off his shoes before stepping onto the mattress. “I shall do my best not to hurt you, Miss Erso, but I must warn you that I fought and beat a Lasat, too.”

“No worries. I’m sturdier than a Lasat.” She tilted her head with an amused look. “Shall we begin?” Without waiting for an answer and without any other warning, Jyn dove towards Muttonchops, she punched him in the side and slipped away before he could hit her back. 

Muttonchops wobbled but didn’t drop. He seemed to realize too late that his size could work in her favour. The smug smile disappeared from his lips while Jyn got ready to strike a second time. 

The dance went on for several minutes, during which Jyn kept charging and retreating. After the first few lunges, though, Muttonchops had seen enough to be able to anticipate her attacks. He dodged, managed to grab her arm and pulled violently, trying to make her fall. Jyn just barely managed to remain standing. 

From that moment on, Jyn was forced to be more careful and Kallus went on the offensive. Jyn had no difficulties in avoiding his huge hands, though. Moreover, unlike her adversary, she had no qualms about backing her blows with all her strength. Bodhi was almost convinced that the match would end in a tie, but then it happened what he had foreseen from the beginning. Jyn faked an attack, Kallus changed his balance to stop her and she made him lose his footing with a well-executed leg sweep. 

The giant fell to the ground with an elegant flip. He got immediately back up to his feet with a fluid movement, moving his fringe away from his eyes with the back of a hand. Despite the scuffle against Jyn and the fall, he looked attractive like an actor in a holosoap.

‘Karabast, _ I’ll never be so dashing _ ’, noticed Bodhi with a little envy.

Jyn straightened, panting because of the effort she’d put into the fight. Her voice sounded sincerely apologetic when she said: “I’m sorry, Agent Kallus, I won.”

Kallus nodded, almost impassible except for a hint disappointment that wrinkled his forehead. “It’s true, Miss Erso. You are a fearsome adversary.” He gathered and wore his things slowly, with such downcast eyes that even Bodhi felt pity towards him. When he was again completely dressed, he talked to Jyn again in a hopeful tone. “May I ask, though, if despite my defeat it may be possible for you to change your mind and accept my proposition?”

Jyn eyed him again, this time without the barely hidden hostility she had displayed earlier. “I’m sorry, I won’t change my mind. However, you might come back to challenge me, if you feel like it. The stakes will remain the same.”

A smile appeared again on Kallus’s lips. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope to be able to defeat you as soon as possible, Miss Erso.” He offered his hand to Jyn, who shook it vigorously. Then, with a nod towards Bodhi, Kallus marched out of the gym and disappeared into the ship’s corridors.

Jyn sighed in relief and started unwrapping her knuckles. She didn’t seem to be the same person who, moments earlier, had invited Muttonchops to try and ask her out who knew how many times. Sometimes Bodhi had to admit he didn’t understand her at all. “Why did you tell him to try again?”

“Shouldn’t I have? He looked so glum.”

“But Jyn, you look terribly uncomfortable when he’s around!”

“That’s what dates are for, aren’t they? To familiarize yourself with other people. Not that I’m an expert on that. And it was fun to fight seriously against someone, for once. No offense, but you really aren’t a dangerous foe and Cassian’s still too fragile, it seems.”

“Do you like him, at least?”

“Whom, Muttonchops?” Jyn moved towards the tables, where she lay one of the wraps while she rewrapped the other one. “Cassian likes him, so he must not be that bad. He’s not ugly. Maybe one day I’ll like him enough to accept his offer.”

“You’d let him win on purpose, then?”

Jyn shook her head and wrinkled her nose in disbelief. “I would never do that.”

Bodhi wetted his lips. In a rush of curiosity, he decided to try to confirm his suspicions. “I bet you’d let Cassian win.”

A sudden tension crept into Jyn’s shoulders, but she didn’t turn to face him. “Of course not. I like winning.”

It was too late to back off now. “You like Cassian, too, though.”

Jyn threw him a deadly glare over her shoulder and finished wrapping the band around her knuckles.

It wasn’t just him then. He felt very proud, maybe too proud, for having guessed right. “Ooh, so it’s true, you  _ do _ like Cassian!”

“Cut it, you’re not funny.”

“I think you like him so much that you’d let him win.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on, just admit it.”

“You can be really annoying sometimes, you know that?”

“You could let him beat you at Sabacc, then.”

Exasperated, Jyn huffed and turned to Bodhi. “In case you haven’t noticed, he beats me  _ every single time _ we play Sabacc, I wouldn’t need to  _ let _ him win!”

“Just what I was saying! It’d be the simplest way to have a date, easy peasy.”

There, he’d pushed his luck too far. A flash of deep irritation passed through Jyn’s eyes and, lightning fast, she dropped him into the mattress for the millionth time. “So where were we? Oh, right, as I was saying, you must never ever show your flank.”

He had to admit he’d asked for it. Sighing, Bodhi got back up to his feet and steadied himself to be dropped for the millionth time plus one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, writing fights is _hard_. I am not convinced I did a good job there, but I asked my lovely boyfriend to beta-read and he didn't know how to improve it, either. Oh well.
> 
> Like Bodhi, I have ambivalent feelings towards Kallus. It's true, he turned good in Rebels Season 3, but he freely admitted having taken an active part in the genocide of the Lasat people. Also, it's really fun to watch how they try to make cartoon character look dashing. XD


	4. The stars around us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes of daily life in the Alliance, part 3.

His shift had been over for a while, now, but he’d had to stay and complete one last report about the operatives stationed on Malastare. The planet was so rich in natural resources and thus indispensable for the Empire that it always offered something to monitor to keep the generals happy. However, everyone in the analysis room knew very well that the huge workload coming from Malastare was completely useless since the planet was too monitored and its citizens were too wealthy for any kind of popular uprising to be successfully instigated. The Malastare reports were thus used as punishment among analysts or they were foisted to the newest guy. Who, in this instance, was him.

He rubbed wearily a hand on his face and through his tousled hair, then he stood up and gathered his leather jacket but before he could slip away he heard his name being called.

”Andor." While he saluted, Draven drew closer and glared at him with his usual detached look. “I have a mission for you, for when you will be declared fit. My sources in the MedBay say that it should happen in a couple of days. Debrief tomorrow at 10.00.” A beat of silence while Cassian nodded his understanding. “Do you mean to take her with you?”

“I do, sir, if the mission will allow it. And also...” He had to stop himself from saying ‘my’, since when had he become so possessive? “...the pilot. Jyn Erso and Bodhi Rook have already shown to be skillful and level-headed, and the ability to work efficiently undercover, as well.”

Draven nodded and, for a long moment, he kept silent and accurately avoided Cassian’s eyes. He seemed strangely embarrassed and vulnerable. He nodded again and, staring at the datapad he held in his hands, he said: “Good. I’m glad of it. Keep them close, they might be useful. That’s all for today, dismissed.”

‘ _Useful?_ ’ Perplexed, Cassian saluted again and limped away before Draven could lift his eyes again and decided to dump on him more data to be analyzed.

It was almost dinnertime, but he didn’t immediately head to the canteen, instead of going towards one of the dozens of observation decks of the ship, the one furthest away from the crowded common areas. When he got there, he passed through the heavy curtains that blocked the entrance in order to stop the light of the corridor from seeping in. He stood still for a few seconds, letting his eyes adapt to the sudden absence of light. The observation deck was a stepped hall that sloped towards the external wall of the _Arcturus_ , which was completely transparent. The wall automatically modified the luminosity of the view which was properly amplified in order to be visible to the majority of sentient species. Like almost any other evening, amplification had been set to a minimum, lights were off and the room was almost empty except for a tiny, motionless figure sitting at the exact center of the hall. He went to Jyn in silence and sat beside her, stretching his still stiff left leg in front of him. He couldn’t resolve her features in the almost total darkness, but he guessed that a smile had appeared on the girl’s face.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes while the ship slipped through the magnificent nebula where the rebel fleet was hiding at the moment. The gas, lighted by the newborn stars that had just started burning in it, shone with ochre and blood-red. The other ships of the Rebel Fleet traveling with the _Arcturus_ moved on this background: other Star Cruisers, frigates, corvettes, X-Wings and Y-Wings on patrol or on a drill. In the middle of the multitude of ships, the flagship of the fleet, _Home One_ , seemed immobile in space. Cassian knew very well that this was just an illusion due to the almost zero relative velocity between it and the _Arcturus_ , while both ships were actually traveling at real-space cruise velocity, that was a considerable fraction of the speed of light.

The peace of the scene and the silence of the room, disturbed only by their breaths and by the almost inaudible hum of the ventilation fan, the urge to hug Jyn, to hold her to him and never let her go so strong enough to choke him. He was still convinced, though, it would be a terrible idea: Jyn had run for almost all of her life, she had never gotten used to settling and the fact that she had stayed with the Rebel fleet for the last two months felt a minor miracle to him. He had no intention to ruin everything just because he wasn’t able to keep his hands to himself. Therefore, mindful of how difficult it had been to resist the fist few times, he had taken the habit of sitting far enough from her that he wouldn’t be able to touch her even by accident. Tonight, with Kallus’ words still ringing in his ears, he felt especially weak.

It was Jyn who finally broke the silence. “When I was a little girl, on clear nights on Lah’mu, my father would point the stars to me and he would teach me their names. He helped me inventing constellations just for me. Sadly, when you move the perspective changes and the constellations mix up, they are of no use anymore, and all of my father’s efforts become futile. I think that for a long time I felt lost also because I couldn’t recognize the starry heavens anymore, since I kept jumping from planet to planet.” After another moment of silence, she asked: “Can you recognize stars, Cassian?”

“I’m afraid I never stayed in any system long enough to learn how to do it with the naked eye.”

“It’s a pity we’re so ignorant. My father used to say we are children of the stars, because every atom in our bodies comes from the explosion of ancient supernovae. That was the reason he used to call me Stardust.”

‘ _Maybe he did it because in your eyes there’s a fire that burns like a sun, too._ ’ “There are too many stars in the galaxy to know them all. I suppose not even K2 would’ve had enough memory in his circuits for such a task.”

“You’re right, of course. But it would be nice anyway, don’t you think?”

Cassian didn’t answer, pondering on the question for a moment before changing the subject. “There’s a mission for me.”

“Ah.” A beat of silence, then: “Am I invited?”

“I should think so. Draven is okay with it, too.”

“Draven is what?” He heard her incredulous chuckle. “He must have decided you’ll need a thief. What kind of mission?”

“I don’t know, yet. The debrief is tomorrow morning. It will probably be something easy, scouting, information testing, something like that.” He hoped so, at least. He glanced at his still stiff leg stretched before him and, not for the first time, he wished he could order his body to heal faster. “A couple of weeks ago, I...” He stopped, trying to swallow the knot that had suddenly lodged in his throat. “I made the request not to be assigned to eradication missions ever again. It should be approved, by now.”

He heard Jyn hold her breath. “Is it because of what happened on Eadu?” Her voice, so low he could barely hear it, was hopeful and Cassian was convinced she already knew the answer. He gave it to her, anyway.

“Yes. I can’t… I don’t want to… murder anyone else.”

Jyn slid closer to him on the bench. “Have I ruined you?”

Cassian swallowed. His heart was racing wildly because of the sudden closeness, despite the sadness and the guilt that made his chest tighten. He tried to smile, even though she couldn’t see it. “Yes, you did.” He took a deep breath. “Everything I’ve done, I did it for the cause. To do my part to restore justice in the galaxy. But it’s too much, sometimes. I’ve done things...” He thought back to when K-2SO offered to erase its own memory while he cried inconsolably, gripping convulsively the still hot sinper rifle in his hands. The recollection of that day made him shiver with horror and brought tears to his eyes. For once he was glad Jyn couldn’t see him through the darkness. “I can’t do them anymore, after Eadu. I can’t.” He forced himself to breathe deeply.

“I’m glad it’s my fault, then.” Her voice was warm, gentle, so different from the cold and provocative tone she’d used when they had first met.

Cassian didn’t say anything else. He remained silence while the wonderful view and Jyn’s warmth beside his shoulder restored a bit of serenity to him. Peace reigned on the observation deck until Bodhi barged in through the door. “There you are. I’ve finally found you!” The pilot sat cheerfully on the step behind them, settling so as to be equidistant to them. “What were you talking about?”

“Stars. Can you recognize them, Bodhi?” Jyn’s voice was hopeful again. Cassian was immensely thankful to her for having picked up their earlier conversation.

“Well, not all of them, of course, just a few of them. I can find my way with constellations in a few systems, for example from Jedha, from Eady, from the Academy… So in principle, if the navicomputer ever suddenly breaks down, I should be able to decide in which direction to find the planet I need to get to.”

Cassian pondered on it for a moment. “Sounds useful, if you’re in the right system.”

“It does, does it? Well, it’s not. Apart from stars and nebulas, everything in space is too small or too dark to be seen with the naked eye, unless you’re about to crash into it. If your navicomputer breaks down and you can’t send out a distress signal, you’re practically dead.” Bodhi put his hand on Jyn’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s talk about more cheerful things. Jyn will now demonstrate how good she is in recognizing the ships. Won’t you, Jyn?”

Jyn huffed and whined: “But Bodhi...”

“No no, no ‘buts’. Come on, show Cassian how good a teacher you have.”

Cassian smiled. Listening to Jyn’s voice laughingly spitting out absurd names she’d just invented and to Bodhi’s playfully scolding one, he felt, maybe for the first time in twenty years, finally happy.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of fluff. Next time we'll have... Plot! 
> 
> Cassian crying on his blaster rifle is actually a scene referenced to in the novelization of _Rogue One_ by A. Freed.
> 
> If you want to have an idea of how cute nebulae are, [here](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171026.html), [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/NGC_2264_by_ESO.jpg/1200px-NGC_2264_by_ESO.jpg), [here](http://www.link2universe.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/orione.jpg) and [here](https://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d4/horseheadx.jpg) you can find some neat pictures.


	5. The mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian is told the nature of the mission and he's not happy. Jyn and Bodhi plot to help him, but there's not much they can do...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this last week, but RL got in the way (specifically, my boyfriend got his master's degree and I had to spend every free moment secretly sewing a Dumbledore costume for his graduation party, which involved an inordinate amount of stitch pulling and frustration but my love was happy, so it was worth it).  
> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but we need to go on with the story!

_**Fleet of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Star Cruiser Arcturus, 53 days after the battle of Yavin** _

That afternoon, Jyn arrived at the gym earlier than usual. Her being there so early was just a coincidence. In the past month, she had made a habit of chatting for a few minutes with half a dozen people, which was a completely new experience for her and which she was certain Saw wouldn’t have approved. On that day her daily round of gossip had to be cut short because Wirryyka, the Wookie mechanic working in the workshop closest to her dormitory, had accidentally stabbed herself with a screwdriver and she was still waiting for her turn in the infirmary. Jyn was cheerful anyway, though, because Alina from the cafeteria had been beaming when she’d told her she was expecting and the girl’s happiness had rubbed off on her, even though she would never ever wish the same thing for herself.

Lost in thought, she stepped into the small gym expecting it to be empty, so the was startled when she found Cassian pummeling the punching bag. “Hello! I see that today they’ve let you leave earlier, thankfully!”

Strangely, he didn’t answer nor gave any sign of having noticed her. He kept mindlessly hitting the punching bag.

Jyn left her few things on the table and drew closer to him. “What is it?” Again no reaction. Jyn started to be really worried. He was putting too much force into his punches, he would hurt himself, he might pull or tear a muscle and he still hadn’t been declared able, so he should still be resting. “Ehi, can you hear me? What’s happening to you?” Her blood suddenly ran cold: Cassian hadn’t protected his knuckles. The leather from the punching bag had abraded his skin, his hands were bloodied. “Stop, Cassian, stop! Now!” No answer. She couldn’t let him go on like that. “Stop!” Risking a blow to her nose, she grabbed his wrists and made him turn towards her. He didn’t struggle at all and looked at her with empty eyes. “Cassian, what’s wrong with you? Look at what you did to yourself!”

He seemed to realize just now the state of his hands. He mumbled an: “Ah.”, but he had no other reaction.

Jyn was becoming increasingly scared. “What’s happening to you?” He dragged to the table where a small medkit lay and started to bandage him up. “Please, Cassian, tell me.”

He kept looking at her with his awfully empty stare. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless. “We have a mission.”

“What kind of mission?”

He tore his eyes away from her and waited in silence for her to finish disinfecting and applying sterile gauze to his hands. “Infiltration and assassination.”

“What?!” Jyn’s worry was suddenly replaced by rage. “How… And you accepted?!”

Cassian nodded. Like before, he had to take a few seconds to find the strength to reply. “There’s no one else...”

“What do you mean, there’s no one else?”

“Draven said I’m still his best agent. That everyone else is away on missions or are dead on… on Scarif. That new operatives are being trained, but it will take many months before they’re ready, and we have to leave tomorrow.”

Jyn stood in front of him to force him to look at her. “And what did you say?”

“That I’m not able to do some things anymore. That I can’t… That I’m sick of...” He collapsed on a chair and his voice died out. He cleared his throat and continued: “Draven said there’s no one else...” Rather than meeting her eyes, he stared obstinately at the floor and when he finally faced her his resigned expression made her feel sick. She’d never thought she might feel nostalgic for his ‘spy face’, one day.

“Who’s the target?”

“Marzipan, the supreme president of Itani. He has implemented a purge against non-humans. He gives them the blame for the Empire’s atrocities. The Empire lets him do it ‘cause they don’t give a damn about non-humans. If there’s anyone who deserves to be...” His voice faltered again. He tried to put on a brave face and smile, but he only managed a sad grimace that made her feel worse.

She couldn’t bear to see him like this. “I’ll do it.”

“ _No_.”

The unexpected force of the answer left her wordless for a second. “But you can’t do it!”

“Who else should do it? Bodhi, who wouldn’t hurt a fly?”

“I might do it.”

“I said no.”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever killed a man in cold blood, looking him in the eye?”

It was her turn to hesitate. “No.”

“Precisely. I don’t want you to start now. I don’t want you to be… like me.”

She wanted to shout, to shake him up, to punch him in order to have back the usual Cassian who beat her at Sabacc and whose laughter filled her with joy. “What can I do?”

He lowered his gaze again, fidgeting with the gauze. “I don’t know.”

They remained still until her fury for seeing him desperate and defeated prevailed. “I do know.” She ran away from him towards the door.

“No, wait!” Cassian jumped to his feet to chase her, but she was already at the door, where she almost crashed into Bodhi, who, seeing her angry, immediately asked: “What’s going on?”

“Bodhi, stop her!”

“Eh? Ah, ok.”

Bodhi tried to grab her, but she threw him to the ground in half a second trying her best not to hurt him. He still hadn’t learned the maneuver from the day before, she would make him exercise later. “Forgive me, Bodhi...”

The commotion had lasted long enough, though, for Cassian to reach her and catch her in his strong grip. “You can’t beat up Draven!”

“Why not? He deserves it!”

“Because he’s a general! You can break all the noses you want when they belong to privates, it will always be their fault because they weren’t fast or careful enough....”

_‘Karabast, he found out about the broken noses...’_

“...but a _general_ is something else! Do want to be thrown in the brig again?!”

“I want you not to have to...”

“By getting arrested and forcing me to leave you here?!”

Jyn opened her mouth to reply, but words failed her: Cassian was right. What had she been thinking? Punching Draven would solve nothing. Had she been deluding herself that he would withdraw his orders just to please her, the troublemaking thief? No, she’d just been looking for someone to vent frustration on.

Moreover, she realized that Cassian had just implicitly said he needed her, at least for this mission. She looked at him and realized he was saying the same thing with his eyes.

Bodhi had stood back up and was staring at both of them, at a loss. “Can someone tell me what is going on?”

It was Jyn who answered with a calm voice: “We have a mission.” Cassian let her go, feeling that her rage had died down a bit.

“So soon? Bro, you still can’t fight me but they already send you running around the galaxy? I totally get why Jyn was angry! Anyway, count me in, captain”

Cassian brightened slightly at his words. “Thanks, Bodhi.”

“What’s the mission, anyway?”

For a moment, Cassian’s face became desperate again, so Jyn grabbed Bodhi’s arm and pushed him to the center of the gym. “Later. Now show me you know how to avoid being thrown to the ground by someone half a foot shorter than you.”

 

For the rest of the day, Jyn and Cassian were strangely quiet and at every attempt he made at asking for an explanation the latter made a strange face and the first shushed him. Thus, when the evening came and Cassian said goodnight to them, reminding them they had to pack, Bodhi demanded that Jyn follow him to his room to tell him what was going on. Sitting on the side of Bodhi’s mattress, they whispered like conspirators to avoid disturbing Bodhi’s roommate, Kaleb, who snored loudly on the upper bunk bed. In a low voice, Jyn recounted to him what Cassian had told her a few hours earlier in the gym and the day before on the observation deck.

“That’s not possible...” Bodhi was shocked. He vaguely realized he had started nervously wringing his hands again, a nervous tic he’d hoped (evidently in vain) he’d lost after the destruction of the Death Star. He thought of Eadu, where Cassian had been ordered to assassinate Galen, the tension he had seen in his friend before he lost the courage to end yet another life… On the other hand, Galen had been a good man, while this guy was a dictator that was perpetrating a genocide… But the man behind the trigger would still be his friend, and he didn’t deserve to be again used as a killing machine. “They-they can’t _make_ him do it. He doesn’t want to, they know. He told them. He mustn’t do it. Jyn, tell me he can refuse.”

“I don’t know how things work with the Alliance… I don’t know if refusing orders is acceptable...”

“How was it with Saw Guerrera? What happened to those that refused orders?”

Jyn visibly shuddered and her voice trembled. “They suddenly… disappeared. For a few days. Then they were found again. Rather, some parts of their bodies were found...”

“Ah…” ‘ _No no no no, absolutely not, I’d rather have Cassian in one piece_ ’. He refused to even remotely consider his friend torn to pieces in some hidden cave and then scattered around to deter other potential defectors. “Do you think it’s true that there are no other agents or is Draven just taking revenge for Scarif?”

Jyn shrugged. “I don’t know. Either might be true, or both. What I’m sure of is that Draven blackmailed him. _Sleemo_.” She hissed the last word so emphatically that Kaleb, above them, grunted and turned in his sleep.

They waited in silence for Kaleb to settle and start snoring again, then Bodhi asked: “Do you think they’ll ask us to swear loyalty to the Alliance, before they let us leave?”

Jyn nodded and stayed silent.

“I don’t want to do it. It’s too much like the Empire. Obey and keep your head down. It… It’s not for me, not anymore. I don’t want to obey anymore if I think the order’s wrong. _Karabast_ , the last time I did that the consequence was that Jedha and Alderaan were destroyed.”

The woman nodded again more vigorously. “You’re right.” After a moment of hesitation, she added: “Cassian needs us, though. They mustn’t keep us from going with him.”

“But what will we be if we help him carry out his orders? Accessories to murder?”

“For now, we must go with him because he needs us, then we’ll think about it. There might be a way to eliminate Marzipan without Cassian having to kill him, and if there is we must find it, but we will only be able to do so on the field.” She rose to go back to her room. On the door, she spun around and ordered: “You mustn’t tell Cassian a word of this, ok? Otherwise, he might actually leave us here and go alone.”

Bodhi smiled. “‘Course, sis. Good night.”

Jyn turned to leave again, but again she stopped. “Are you sure you’ll manage to sleep tonight, with Chainsaw-guy snoring above you?”

Bodhi smiled again to reassure her. “Tonight I will. I asked very nicely to the quartermaster and he gave me a pair of earplugs. That man has a soft spot for me, it seems.”

Jyn giggled nervously, nodded her goodbye and this time left for good.

 

Of course, Jyn was incapable of going to bed without having some answers first. She had no problem sneaking into the command room of the intelligence service: the corridors were strangely empty, maybe because of the late hour. In order not to be noticed, she did her best to merge with the shadows like Cassian did. Indeed, nobody saw her. It felt too easy.

Draven was standing beside a terminal with his back turned. She immediately felt an almost uncontrollable rage upon seeing him. He was listening seriously to a small, plump analyst. The room was lighted almost exclusively by the few computer monitors still on, which made for a decidedly eerie atmosphere. Jyn tried to sneak up on the general, but when she was but a few paces away he startled her by turning to her with an expression she couldn’t decipher in the gloom. “Miss Erso. I’ve been expecting you. I was convinced you would come much earlier.”

Jyn froze and stayed silent for a second, squeezing her fists so tight that her nails wounded her palms, trying to subdue her ire. She managed to calm down enough to hiss: “Why.”

The analyst wriggled in his seat, fearful of her. Draven sighed and nodded. “As a matter of fact, I was expecting this question, too. Before I answer it I have to ask you to follow me to my office, Miss Erso.”

“Are you sure, General?”, asked the analyst.

Draven scoffed. “Don’t worry, Weems. Should something bad happen to me, it would be just because I richly deserve it.”

Jyn followed him without another word, throwing a feral look to the trembling analyst. The general led her to a tiny, much better-lit room that was just as impersonal and nondescript as she had expected. Draven walked around the desk and didn’t sit down, motioning her to take a seat, anyway. Jyn remained stubbornly standing: she would rather face him on her feet despite their height difference, trying to put in her stare all of the animosity she felt towards that man. He looked unperturbed and started talking: “I must say, Miss Erso...”

“Why.” She had just one question and she only cared about its answer. She didn’t want to hear a word more than what was necessary, or she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to control herself.

“Captain Andor is the only soldier I have in my service that meets the characteristics required for this mission.”

“I don’t believe it.” By the Force, how she hated that man.

Draven considered her for a heartbeat, then he took his datapad, opened a file on it and offered it to her. “This is the message we were contacted with. Please read the requests made regarding the operative. Our contacts must have found a way to put someone undercover.”

Skeptical, Jyn took the datapad and read where she had been asked. ‘ _Human, male, mid-20s,_ ’ She violently threw the datapad on the desk, feeling she was being made a fool of. “So? It’s such a generic description that I can’t believe...”

The general, looking sad and overwhelmingly tired, opened another file on the datapad and handed it to her again. “This is the list of human operatives, male, between twenty and twenty-nine, who were in my service at the beginning of the current year.”

Jyn looked at the list, swiftly and randomly at first and then systematically. There were dozens of names, apparently in alphabetical order.

_Koos, Yuri. On mission. Marteen, Elios. Retired._

The file went on like this, like a chant, with one of the two statuses listed beside each name. ‘ _On mission. On mission. Retired. On mission. On mission. Retired..._ ’ She had an idea of what ‘ _retired_ ’ meant, but she wasn’t certain until she found a familiar name and her knees gave out.

_Melshi, Ruescott. Retired._

Jyn collapsed on the chair. Her rage had died down, giving way to suffocating guilt. Half panting, she murmured: “How many...” She cleared her throat and repeated with a stronger voice: “How many died on Scarif.”

“Around thirty.”

Around thirty human males in their mid-20s. Around thirty Cassians. And she had indirectly killed them herself. There was one single name where the chant changed and she frantically reread the line a dozen times to make sure that the status didn’t change under her eyes.

_Jeron Andor, Cassian. On medical leave._

It was true that Cassian was the only one, it hadn’t been a lie. If only those thirty spies or so that had followed her to Scarif had still been alive, Cassian would be safe right now...

She vaguely realized that Draven had sat, too, and was talking to her. “Miss Erso… Jyn. I know very well that captain Andor would rather not be assigned this mission, but my hands are tied. I really have no one else. Listen to me, Jyn. A racial cleansing operation is underway. We _must_ do something to stop it. Every day thousands of people are brutally murdered. I would never ask this of captain Andor if I had any other option, but there is no time to wait for some other operative to come back from their mission…” Draven sighed deeply and said something yet unheard of: “Miss Erso, I need you.”

Jyn winced and roused herself from her stupor. Baffled, she asked: “Me?”

“Yes, you. And Mister Rook. It is clear that you both care a lot for captain… For Cassian. I beg you, stay with him, don’t abandon him. Help him if you can. Bring him home safe and sound.”

The conversation had taken a totally unexpected turn. She had been clearly wrong in thinking the general didn’t care about his men and she felt her hostility towards him lower considerably. “Is there anything I can do, anything, to convince you not to ask Cassian to kill again, anyway?”

Draven grinned bitterly. “Believe me, if I had the power to avoid it we would never have reached this point. The decision was made from above. Apparently, the Council hopes that our intervention will be enough to bring the planet on our side. They asked me to provide a man and I am bound to provide them with one as soon as possible.”

Jyn let the datapad drop on the desk and stared at length at the general. She felt defeated on all sides, empty, tired. “I still hate you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I hope you understand that the only person in the entire Alliance Bodhi and I will ever be able to swear allegiance to is captain Andor.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Jyn stood to leave, but the general called her back.

“Wait. Regarding your position within the Alliance, I have a proposition that might interest you.”

Jyn sat down again. “Tell me. I’m listening...”

 

 


	6. Chance favours the prepared spies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian is declared able, Jyn is embarrassed, Bodhi happily runs around someone else's ships.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeh, a new chapter, guys! This one has actually been _almost_ ready for about a month, but Christmas holidays are _busy_.
> 
> Oh, a (very late) Merry Christmas and happy new year!

Intellectually, Cassian knew that it was impossible for the walls, ceilings and floors of the infirmary to be whiter than any other one on the ship, which was everywhere candid and glistening as dictated by the Mon Calamari style, but every time he visited it he had the unpleasant sensation that the light here shone brighter and harder than anywhere else. Because of this, perhaps aided by the lingering whiff of antiseptic, the infirmary invariably gave him a light and annoying headache. 

The same physician who had freed his body from the casts a couple of weeks earlier, a Twi'lek with greyish green skin and icy eyes, was visiting him to make sure that Cassian was fit enough to be declared able. 

It had been impossible to hide the state of his hands. The doctor had carefully removed the bloodied gauze and had examined the abraded skin with a critical look. He hadn’t believed for a second that the damage had been accidental as Cassian had maintained. 

“These are self-inflicted wounds, captain. Stop trying to use your spy tricks on me, your body can’t lie.”

Cassian had fallen silent while the Twi’lek, after having applied a thin layer of Bacta on his knuckles and a new strip of gauze, went on with his work. 

Finally, the physician was satisfied. “I will give my consent to your being declared able, but with reserves. Your bones have welded satisfactorily, but you would still need a cycle or two of physiotherapy...” Cassian stopped paying attention to the ritual phrases he had already heard too many times. They both knew that the physician’s reserves would have no effect and Cassian would leave that afternoon as established. “...and now, we still have to talk about your hands.”

Cassian directed at once his attention back to the doctor, whose wrinkly moss-colored face had turned stern. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I disagree.”

“I injured myself. I’ll heal.”

“Listen to me, captain. You have been doing a job which is extremely consuming both physically and psychologically. It wouldn’t be the first time I notice self-destructive tendencies in individuals such as yourself.”

“I have no self-d...”

“ _ Look at your hands _ , there’s the proof you need! You’re lying even to yourself! I immensely regret that I don’t have the power to cancel or postpone your mission, but I order you to submit to a psychological assessment as soon as you come back.”

Mercilessly, the physician scribbled on Cassian’s file, for whom the simplest physical exam was extremely uncomfortable. The thought of having a stranger wander through his mind and explore his thoughts was unbearable. Feeling powerless, he tried to complain: “But doctor...”

“No ‘but’s, young man! I’ve already seen too many of your kind die, soldiers who lost the will to live, and who knows how many more I’ll have to see before this wretched war’s over.” The doctor paused and his tone became slightly more accommodating: “You won’t be sent alone on this mission, I hope.”

“No, sir.”

“Do you trust your partners?”

“Utterly.”

“Then talk to them, son”, said the physician pleadingly, “Talk to them about the things that upset you enough to lead you to self-destruction. They may not be psychologists, but if they’re willing to listen they may be able to help, anyway.”

Cassian nodded to appease the physician, but he already knew he wouldn’t comply. He got up, shook the doctor’s hand and run away as fast as he could towards the freedom offered by the corridors.

He smiled upon finding Jyn waiting for him outside the infirmary door, while a traitorous part of his mind, as usual, wondered what it would feel like to gather her in his arms. As usual, he strived to banish the thought, which remained stubbornly stuck in his mind. 

“Cassian, I must tell you something.”

Hearing the hushed tone of her voice, noticing how serious and worried her eyes looked, the rigid pose her body had taken, her hands twisting like Bodhi’s, the happiness he had felt a moment before disappeared and his blood turned cold in his veins. 

“Bodhi and I decided not to become part of the Alliance.”

_ ‘No.’ _ His heart lost a beat.

“Bodhi observed that you are being treated too much like Imperial soldiers are, and we don’t want to have anything to do with organizations like those.”

_ ‘Don’t leave, I beg you.’ _ He tried to steel himself for the inevitable consequence of her words. He would have liked to lean on something, but he was too far away from anything except Jyn, and he couldn’t move without her noticing his desperation-induced weakness. He had no choice but order his knees not to give out.

“You’re our friend, though. So if you still want us, we are willing to come with you on your missions. All of them, whatever they may be. We are with you, all the way.”

Overwhelmed by fondness and gratitude, Cassian finally was able to breathe again. As soon as some oxygen returned to his brain, he realized that being assisted by two civilians was a highly anomalous situation since when the Alliance had been founded by the unification of hundreds of rebel cells and had tried to achieve some semblance of an official character.

Obviously, Jyn noticed his confusion and explained in a rush: “Draven asked us to stay anyway, since some people say we are the heroes of Scarif… Well, what I mean is that now we are two mercenaries hired by the Alliance to watch your back. I’m Agent Erso and Bodhi is Pilot Rook. Provided you are all right with working with two people who rebel against the Rebellion…”

_ ‘We are with you, all the way.’ _ No one else had ever told him anything as momentous as this, never had he been promised anything like this. He smiled, relieved, and joked: “I surely trust Bodhi. You, maybe…”

She gave him an embarrassed grin. “You knew it would not be easy with me.”

“Yes, I did.” And he suddenly wanted to kiss her. More than anything else in the galaxy, he wanted to gather her in his arms, kiss her and never ever let her go. This new urge took him by surprise and he again had to employ all of his willpower to force his legs not to give up on him. He stuttered: “Ehm, where’s Bodhi?”

“He’s in the main hangar. He went to look for a ship to requisition. He said he had one with very specific characteristics in mind.”

“I don’t know why, but this somewhat worries me...”

Jyn chuckled nervously and stole a glance at him, twisting her hands again. “You’re not mad at us, then, right?”

For some reason, she was even more attractive than usual when she was embarrassed. “No, Jyn. I’m sorry we don’t see eye to eye about the Alliance, but I don’t believe an oath is needed to fight for the right side.”

“Good...” Jyn cleared her throat and tapped his left arm with a finger. “How are you, then? Are you still an invalid?”

She had come too close for him to keep his cool much longer.  _ Karabast _ , what in the galaxy was wrong with him? He swallowed trying not to attract her attention before answering, to make sure his voice wouldn’t falter. “The physician says I should rest a few more days, but… well, duty calls.”

A sound of static came from her comlink, and she swiftly took a step back to answer. He heard Bodhi’s voice: “ _ Jyn, I’ve found it, it’s marvelous! You can bring Cassian down to the hangar whenever you like, I’m waiting for you at landing platform 14B! _ ”

“We’ll be right there.” She shut off the communication and looked at him mischievously. “What do you say, are we brave enough to find out what sort of ship he got?”

Cassian nodded vigorously, hiding his disappointment for the opportunity he had just wasted.  _ ‘You should have kissed her, you stupid coward.’ _

 

 

Landing platform 14B was occupied by a ship the like of which neither Cassian nor Jyn had ever seen before. It consisted of three almost-spherical segments of increasing dimensions. It gave the impression of being a gigantic insect. It had been repainted multiple times, but the original blue color was still visible under all the scratches. Cassian remembered that peculiar shade of blue very well because it had scarred his childhood. “It’s a Confederate ship...”

Jyn gave him a questioning look. She had been born after the beginning of the Clone War, she had been too young to know the complete name of the two sides, and afterward, she’d had no reason to learn.

“It belonged to the Confederation of Independent Systems, which the Republic dubbed ‘Separatist’.”

“Oh...” The look on her face became confused: he was sure she would question him about it in the future. 

Bodhi saw them and run to them, beaming with joy. “Isn’t she a beauty? She has a hyperdrive, a cargo hold in the back, and as many as four cabins in the central body! It has a sixth generation Arkanian engine, a wonder, more reliable than any of its competitors. And moreover...”

“Four cabins?”

“Yes, yes, we need them because it will take between four and six hyperspace jumps to get to Itani, no less than two days of travel. As I was saying, it even has a shower and...”

“Bodhi, it’s scrap metal!”

“She’s not scrap metal!”

“Take a closer look, it’s a glorified piece of junk!”

“You’re a rude piece of junk. This is an antique, she has a long history!”

“I can see very well it has a history, I just hope its history doesn’t end with us exploding!”

“Come on, bro, I bet Jyn likes her. Jyn, help me out.”

Jyn gasped for breath, at a loss for words. “It’s… She’s… well… unique...”

“There you go, Jyn likes her. Can we take off now, captain?”

Cassian pinched his nose and sighed. He was sure the ship would increase his infirmary-caused headache very, very soon. “Warm up the engines. I’ll pay a visit to the quartermaster and then we’ll leave.”


	7. The voyage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes travel to Itani, Jyn and Cassian bond some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More bonding. Because when you're ( _spoiler alert_ ) falling in love you need lots of bonding.

Seen from the inside, the ship was  _ tiny _ : the cabins were only large enough to accommodate a bed and a small locker, the cockpit had barely room for pilot and copilot seats, thus the cargo hold was the only room big enough to stretch their legs and for them to reunite without the space becoming too crowded.

The amazingly smooth reactions of the ship to Bodhi’s commands and the complete lack of problems at takeoff forced Cassian to rethink his first opinion of the vessel. After the first hyperspace jump, he even reluctantly admitted that Bodhi had chosen well.

In the cargo hold, Cassian laid out the very first part of his plan. The Itani system, in the south-western Inner Rim, was made up of four rocky planets and two gas giants. The political and demographic centre of the system was the second rocky planet, which had a warm and humid climate, huge tropical forests and as many as nine tiny moons with a rather low orbit. Most of the population was concentrated on the continent where the capital, New Sabanna, lay. From New Sabanna, Marzipan and his puppet government ruled with an iron fist. “This is the city map as of three days ago. I need you to memorize the whole of it, main street names and location of most important structures included. At this point here there’s an old empty building set for demolition from which the Presidential Palace is visible. First of all, we need to find an apartment there which we will use as a safehouse, then Jyn and I will do some recon while Bodhi stays at the safehouse to observe the palace. Bodhi, you must try to study the routine of the president and his staff. You might be able to find a weak link, like, I don’t know, someone we can bribe.”

“What do you need someone on the inside for? Do you intend to poison Marzipan?”

“No, no poison. He has a taster, he would be the only one to die. No sniper rifle either: every window in the palace has its own ray shield, and the few times the President steps outside he carries a portable deflector with him. I will need to physically enter the palace to...”

“You must also come out of it safe and sound, though”, Jyn interrupted. Her gaze was stern and her tone said that she wouldn’t accept any argument on the subject. 

Cassian hastened to specify: “That’s the main reason we might need the contact on the inside.”

Jyn looked at him with an indecipherable expression. “What about Draven’s contacts? They must already have useful information, right?”

“Sure, and we will meet up with them, too, but I prefer to find out some things by myself. Besides, you never know how much you can trust informants.”

 

_ Galen Erso stepped forward. He finally had a clear line of fire. Jyn would hate him, she would most probably try to kill him and the others would help her.  _

_ He slightly adjusted the position of the rifle as he had done hundreds of times in the past, trying not to shiver because of the icy rain and the cold seeping into his bones.  _

_ He wasn’t afraid to die, he would get what he deserved. He was afraid of the disappointment in Jyn’s eyes when she would find out he’d betrayed her. _

_ He just had to pull the trigger and Galen Erso would fall to the ground, dead.  _

_ Before he had the heart to do it, Galen turned and looked at him through the scope with his daughter’s eyes. It was impossible for the man to see him, hundreds of meters away, at night and under the heavy shower, and yet he was looking right at him.  _

_ Galen was no longer surrounded by the Imperial officers and engineers that had been there until a moment earlier, but by many, many other men and women. He recognized them immediately. _

_ Twenty-seven faces stared at him emotionlessly. He remembered them all. He remembered the eyes of every single one of them when he had killed them. He remembered the reason for each death he had inflicted, for each trust he had broken. Now, after all that time, most of those deaths seemed unnecessary to him.  _

_ With a pained cry, he threw the rifle to the ground, so as not to have to see them anymore, but when he turned he found them all standing behind him. They had surrounded him. The rain was pouring more than ever but it couldn’t wet them. Galen was still at the front of the legion. He had Jyn’s eyes and he was disappointed.  _

 

Cassian woke with a start covered in cold sweat. His heart was beating furiously. He had to take a second to understand where he was. He took his head in his hands and took deep breaths to calm himself down but, failing that, he dressed up again and exited his cabin. 

In the cargo hold, everything was in its place, just as he'd left it before going to bed. He put his feverish brow against the cold metal wall and wondered what would happen to him if he'd jump off the ship now, while they were in hyperspace. He decided he would become a small cloud of exotic plasma as soon as he left the hull. It would most likely be a painless death. The temptation was irresistible. 

Then he decided that vanishing into thin air while traveling with two people who, less than two months ago, had been accused of being Imperial spies and who, only yesterday, had refused to swear allegiance to the Alliance would not have a positive influence on Jyn and Bodhi’s life expectancies. ' _ Not a good idea _ .’

He headed to the cockpit to make sure that everything was all right there, too. According to the ship’s chronometer, they would have to end the current hyperspace jump in seven hours and twenty-four minutes. The instrumentation revealed no anomaly in travel conditions: either the ship was behaving flawlessly, or it was lying through its teeth and it was about to explode.

He resigned to have nothing to do for the moment and he was about to go back to his cabin when he realized that the copilot’s seat was occupied. He drew closer and found Jyn, curled up against the backrest. She had fallen asleep holding the datapad showing the map of New Sabanna. She was so beautiful.

He sat in the pilot’s seat, guarding over her sleep and admiring the spectacle of the hyperdrive piercing the space-time in front of the ship.

He couldn’t leave her to sleep there, not if he wanted to prevent her from having a terrible backache the following day. He delicately moved a lock of hair away from her face and softly called her name, but she was sleeping too soundly. He decided that carrying a sleeping girl on a distance of a dozen meters wouldn’t go  _ too much _ against the doctor’s order to rest. 

He took her datapad from her hands and hung it on his belt, then, as delicately as he could, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the cabin she had chosen, which was in front of his and beside Bodhi’s. He tried to ignore the warmth of her slight body and how much he liked holding her. Making her lie down on her bed was much harder than he had foreseen, because, as he was putting her down on her bed, she moved in her sleep and lay her brow on his cheek with a content sigh. Cassian forced himself to maintain his breathing regular, while his heart started racing wildly in his chest. He carefully lay her down on the mattress, took her boots off and covered her with her blanket. 

He put her datapad beside her pillow and sat beside her once again. 

‘ _ What do you think of me, Jyn? _ ’

There was no doubt in his mind that both her and Bodhi were disgusted by the mission, not because of the target but because it had been assigned to himself. He was grateful that they hadn’t abandoned him, even though he knew that interrupting his self-inflicted solitude would be dangerous: he had spent most of his life striving not to form attachments and there he was, about to infiltrate enemy territory with the two beings that were dearest to him in the whole galaxy. He had no need to wonder what would happen if either of them were captured, because he already knew he would sacrifice everything, even the mission, to have them back.

What he didn’t knew and added to his torment was whether Jyn still blamed him for Galen’s death, since he hadn’t been able to save him after deciding not to kill him. He was terrified that murdering a man in cold blood in front of her would take her back to Eadu and make her feel the same terrible hate against him. He wouldn’t be able to live with it, but it was a possibility he could not rule out. He remembered his dream, the hard stare Galen Erso had given him, so similar to Jyn’s.

‘ _ You’re just a coward. _ ’

He suddenly longed to tell her about his dead, that came to him every night, as the doctor had said, but he wasn’t brave enough for that, either. 

“Sweet dreams, Jyn”, he whispered. He was about to leave, but before he did he turned back and lightly kissed her temple. Then, scared by his own actions, ran back to his cabin.

 

The next morning (or what they had arbitrarily decided to call morning aboard the ship, synchronizing as much as possible with New Sabanna time) Jyn made no inquiries as to why she had woken up in a different place from where she had fallen asleep. She knew perfectly well who the culprit was and she also knew he would resent her if she reminded him of the doctor’s order to rest, mostly because he would find out she had eavesdropped behind the door for a few seconds (she hadn’t been able to hear anything else, though: she had been caught and kicked out by a stupid, overzealous nurse droid that took too seriously the doctor-patient confidentiality). Thus she decided to ignore it and went to the cargo hold to get breakfast.

They still had three hyperspace jumps before them, and according to Bodhi’s calculations, they would have to spend another 22 hours or more on the ship, which at this point felt to her like a very small cage. 

She studied again and again the New Sabanna maps ad nauseam until, groaning with boredom, she decided she’d had enough. 

She found her friends in the cockpit. They were taking the ship back to realspace before executing the penultimate hyperspace jump. Bodhi delicately pulled a lever and stars reappeared in front of the ship.

The two men’s hands flew on the console too fast for her to understand what they were doing using her imperfect knowledge of piloting, but she noticed that even Cassian looked slow and clumsy when compared with Bodhi. Despite the swiftness of his movements, the pilot was calm and almost preternaturally serene under the harsh light of the stars. Right now, in space, he was in command, giving orders to his captain serving as copilot, speaking softly as if he were reluctant to break the spell of interstellar silence.

Finally, Cassian said: “Calculations completed.”

Bodhi lay his hand on the lever again and pushed very delicately. “Beginning jump.”

The image of the stars dilated relativistically for a heartbeat before it vanished, signaling that they had left realspace. Bodhi’s concentration didn’t falter, but Cassian let go of the controls and leaned against the backrest with a seemingly relieved sigh. “Do you still need me?”

“No, thanks, I just have to perfect the attitude.”

Cassian rose to his feet and came towards her with a grin that should have been a smile. 

‘No real smiles until the end of the mission’, Jyn thought mournfully. “How’s it going?”

“Remarkably well. Either this piece of scrap metal is a much better ship than it lets on or Bodhi is a wizard in disguise.”

Still concentrated on the console, the pilot scolded him: “A captain should trust his vessel much more.”

Jyn chuckled. “I memorized the maps. Is there anything else I should do or am I condemned to boredom for the rest of the trip?”

“Are you sure you memorized them?”

“Well, pretty sure, yeah.”

“What if I asked you to go from one place to another, would you be able to tell me the way you would choose without looking at the map?”

“Ehm… I don’t know… It might be...”

“Show me.”

Jyn spent the next hour answering questions like: “You’re in front of point A, you must go to point B avoiding the guards stationed at point C. Which way do you go?”

At first, she did her utmost to impress Cassian, but after the first dozen times, she started to get bored again. To enjoy herself she started stuffing her answers with useless details or inventing convoluted routes that would take all around the city. 

Cassian fought back increasing the specificity of the questions and she felt pushed to ever more daring answers. 

Bodhi appeared in the hold to listen, but when he received a question without warning he wasn’t able to answer. Cassian told him sternly that preparation before a mission was a step fundamental to the success of the mission, so the pilot went back to the bow of the ship to study. 

Jyn rose from the crate she had sat on to stretch her legs. “Don’t you think the interrogation has gone on long enough?” 

“It’s possible. You’re good.”

They remained in silence until Jyn found the courage to ask a question that got her very curious. “How did you know this was a Separatist ship? Were you a Separatist?” In his youth, Saw had hated Separatists: he had told her stories of the fight to take back his birth planet, Onderon, from them and of his beloved sister Steela’s horrible death during the very last fight. For this reason, when someone was recruited into his group of partisans, Saw forbid them to discuss any past political opinion: if he had found out that one of his recruits had been a Separatist before the rise of the Empire he might have killed them.

Cassian mused on the question for a few seconds. “My planet was, maybe my parents were. I was just a six-year-old child, scared and orphaned.”

Jyn felt her face flush red. “Oh, I’m sorry...”

He interrupted her, saving her from the embarrassment of mumbling an apology. “It’s nothing. It’s just that not even adults had the luxury to choose their side, let alone a child like I was.”

Jyn didn’t answer, feeling mortified for having brought up a topic which, she just now realized, might hurt Cassian, but he tried (and failed) to smile again and said: “Did you know you were born on a Confederate planet, too?”

No, she didn’t. The news surprised her and reminded her that Cassian was a spy who knew much more about her life by having read, and maybe compiled, her file than she knew herself. This made her feel less guilty for her question: at least she had tried to balance the scales in their relationship.

“Your parents had been captured at the start of the war and you were born during their captivity. Then a few months later Krennic came to free you. Maybe I should rather say he came to take you into custody since a few years later your parents became so desperate that they resorted to ask Saw Gerrera for help to escape Coruscant.”

_ Her parents’ murderer, always dressed in white, visiting the Coruscant apartment with wide windows on the everpresent traffic of Imperial City, her mother Lyra striving to appear friendly, her father Galen amiably chatting with him… _

“I remember this part”, she whispered.

Cassian studied her for a moment, then let his gaze wonder on the crates surrounding them as if looking for a more pleasant topic of conversation. Finally, he said bitterly: “If I could have chosen, I might have chosen the Confederation anyway.”

Jyn stared at him in disbelief.

“I am aware they have… maybe I should say ‘we have’... lost the war, and that the Empire keeps depicting them as traitors of the state, but the initial intent of the founders of the Confederation was that of rooting corruption out of the Republic Senate. Then they trusted the wrong man, who dragged us all into an intragalactic war, but the Republic apparently made the exact same mistake, since the last Republican Chancellor is the current Emperor… So maybe corruption wasn’t as non-existing as they would have us believe...”

Jyn sat beside him again, feeling foolish for her prejudices: she had never considered the fact that Separatists had been real people, not just paper characters in history books. She tried to hold her tongue, but curiosity got the better of her. “What were your parents like?”

“My father was… Kind, smiling. He was human, I’m sure. He died during a rally against the war effort. I remember almost nothing about my mother, not even her face. I have some vague recollection of a smile, of… some family party. I remember when she told me I would have a sister, but they are more… sensations than images. When I joined the Alliance I tried to go back to my planet to find some traces leading back to her or my family, but the bombardments by the clones had been so extensive that most of the archives had been destroyed. I’m not even entirely sure my mother was human. Even though the mirror would seem to suggest it.”

Jyn felt a pang of pity realizing that Cassian knew much more about the Erso family than his own. “What… What about your sister?”

Cassian shook his head. “I have no idea, I don’t know what happened to her. Actually, it’s possible that she’s just a figment of my imagination.” It was him again who broke the silence that followed. “Do you remember your mother?”

Lyra. Beautiful, hieratic, with kind eyes almost as dark as Cassian’s, long brown hair framing her face, her last hug on Lah’mu. ‘ _ Trust the Force... _ ’

“I do.” She realized she had instinctively grabbed the pendant she’d left her. She showed it to Cassian. “This was hers.”

“What is it?”

“A Kyber crystal. My parents were studying them before they… well, fled. It’s the only thing I’ve managed to hold on to through the years.”

“May I see it?”

She nodded and passed the crystal to him. He’d had to draw closer because she would never have thought of taking it off her neck. She suddenly realized with a start that the distance between them was so short that the slightest movement would make them touch. She felt herself flush violently. She wanted to run and get closer to him at the same time but she had the strength of will to do neither. Any moment now he would realize how close they were and she would have to take a decision. He was still focused on the crystal, so she forced herself to remain perfectly still, intoxicated by his presence. She had nothing to do except to look at her friend’s sharp face, softened by the beard and by his bright eyes, framed by his now really too long hair. She believed she would never tire to look at that face. After the first moment of embarrassment, being so close to him felt so natural that she wished to remain there forever, until Cassian, a few seconds later, rose her eyes towards her.

“It’s weird, it pulses, it almost feels alive...”

He stopped and petrified seeing Jyn’s eyes so close to his own. They remained still for a heartbeat, neither of them brave enough to move away or nearer. His eyes, fixed upon hers, seemed to her more beautiful than ever.

She wanted him to keep looking at her like that until the end of time. 

She was Jyn Erso, though, and the Force liked to make fun of her. In that moment Cassian close his eyes and drew away from her. “I had better...” He let the crystal go and slipped away from the crate, clearing his throat without meeting her gaze again. “I had better check on Bodhi.”

Jyn looked as he disappeared into the corridor, still petrified, feeling suddenly lonely, cold and sad, wondering why her heart was racing like that and refusing to find an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the locket scene in Space Balls is never amiss.


	8. The City of Shadows

The climate of New Sabanna was oppressive, not only because of the heat. Here in the Inner Rim, the yoke of dictatorship was much more evident than in the galactic outskirts and Imperial flags were everywhere. 

_ It's not a problem if you don't look up. _

She now deeply regretted her words, but the phrase seemed to perfectly represent the submissive attitude to the authority of the Itani population. 

Everywhere there were informative posters and holograms, reminding the population of the curfew in effect from dusk to dawn, or urging the  _ conscientious citizens _ to call the dedicated emergency numbers in case they had information regarding the presence of non-human scum within the city walls, so as to aid the local military force in the suppression of illegal activities. Evidently, the pogrom against non-humans the Rebellion had heard of was still in full swing. 

She slipped through the colourful crowd while Cassian, who was walking beside her, directed her holding her elbow as he had done in the market of Jehda City. Had the situation been different, had they not been on hostile and dangerous territory, Jyn might have burnt because of the heat radiating from where his fingers touched her. 

At the moment, though, she wasn't allowed any distractions. She felt Cassian was strung tight as a violin and he kept glancing around suspiciously. She couldn't blame him since every three blocks they stumbled on a unit of patrolling Stormtroopers. 

At first, it had been easy to look like passerby, but since they had left the spaceport and entered the ancient city walls, their neutral clothes and worn leather jackets typical of interstellar travellers set them increasingly apart from the brightly-coloured tunics of the locals. Since Imperials had the tendency to stop for interrogation anyone who stood out from the crowd, Jyn was starting to feel increasingly jittery. 

Only when they were forced to dive into a back alley to avoid being noticed did Jyn dare to face the problem that had surely not escaped Cassian. 

She stood in front of him sternly with her arms crossed. “We need new clothes, ours are too noticeable.”

She had expected some kind of resistance, some exhaustive answers as to why she was wrong, some rebuff for not trusting her captain enough. Instead, Cassian just placidly looked at her and said: “I know.”

Jyn was wordless for a second, startled by his lack of resistance. “So?”

“So what?”

“Why haven't we gotten them yet?”

Cassian shrugged. “Clothes cost money. Which we don't have.”

Jyn almost started laughing in his face. “Is that it? Stay here, I'll be right back.”

She moved to return to the crowded main road, but Cassian grabbed her arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“We have no money. I'm going to obtain some money.”

“You said it yourself, we are too noticeable. It's not safe to pickpocket in these conditions!”

“Cassian, please, I've been doing this since I was eight and I've never been caught. And I'm much better at it than you are.”

“What? How would you know?”

She grinned smugly. “I'm so glad you asked. This must be yours, I think.” She waved her hand under his nose, holding his lock-pick pouch. 

“How did you…” He just stared at her for a moment (his confusion was worth the enormous efforts she'd had to make to pull that prank on him) and grabbed his pouch grumpily. “All right, you're better than I am. It still doesn't mean this is a good idea.”

“Do you have another? Stop being overprotective, I've been stealing my whole life to survive!”

“Sure, but when we met you were wanted on five planets.”

“Insignificant details, and it was for a completely different crime. Come on, captain, do I have your permission?”

“I don't like being separated. We still aren't familiar with the city.”

“I can't have you breathing down my neck while I put my hands in people's pockets!”

Cassian sighed, defeated. “All right.”

“Oh, finally, thank you. Stay here, I'll be right back!” And she toddled off, happy like a child with a new toy. 

Cassian sighed again and waited. He couldn't help feeling uneasy until he saw her come back a few minutes later with her pockets full of credits. Jyn solemnly handed over to him her loot. 

“How many people have you pickpocketed? This is a small fortune!”

She shrugged. “Two or three. The trick is choosing the right targets and this city seems to be full of them.”

Back on the main road, they slipped in the first clothing store they could find.

Since they now had plenty of money, Cassian bought not one but two tunics for each of them, a light and a dark one, so that they may switch dresses if they suspected they were being followed or if they had to trail someone uncommonly observant. They chose the least flamboyant colours they could find, which still felt to them incredibly bright. They also bought two tunics for Bodhi, who was waiting on the ship while they finished their reconnaissance, guessing he had more or less the same measurements as Cassian. 

Jyn felt terribly uneasy in her new burgundy tunic, she wished she'd still had on her adherent shirt and trousers that didn't limit her movements with excess cloth, but this time, heading towards the city centre. They had no problems giving the patrolmen the slip

They were so rich now that they could even afford to take a tram instead of going on foot. They travelled forward towards the heart of the capital, through large tree-lined avenues surrounded by buildings covered in vegetation and by the wonderful hanging gardens to which the city owed its galaxy-wide fame. 

They got off the tram close to the crowded central market, that smelled like spices and exotic flowers. 

Nearly arrived at their destination, they noticed that the locals hurriedly covered their heads folding the abundant cloth of their tunics into a hood. Jyn and Cassian imitated them so as not to be the only ones in the street with uncovered heads, without knowing the reasons for the change. They found out a few seconds later, when it started pouring warm rain, apparently it of the blue to their untrained eyes. 

Jyn was astonished of still being almost completely dry: the tunics were waterproof. Her appreciation of her new article of clothing suddenly skyrocketed. 

When they reached their destination, the abandoned building where they would find a safe place to set up camp, it still hadn't stopped pouring. Seen from the outside under the heavy rain, the building looked like it would topple down any second. It looked like a house haunted by errant spirits straight out of the tales the partisans had used to narrate during her childhood. The impression that it was uninhabited was strengthened by the wooden planks almost completely blocking the entrance.

Ghosts were not the only residents, though. As soon as they climbed over the planks and entered the lobby, they saw a tiny Rodian child bolting down the stairs towards the front door. 

Cassian grabbed him and exclaimed in Rodian: “ _ Hey, young man, stop right there! It's dangerous out there and it's raining tooka-cats and loth-dogs! _ ”

Jyn’s jaw dropped. Even though most humans could understand Rodian, very few were able to speak it. Cassian was the first of the latter group she had ever met. She wondered if, after all, his mother could have been something other than human. 

The child couldn't be more than three or four years old and looked absolutely terrified. He was petrified and he kept staring at the stranger with the dripping beard that was holding him in his arms and spoke to him in his own language. Jyn noticed that he was rather slim and that his bones were clearly visible under his scaly emerald-green skin. “Maybe he's hungry…”, she whispered in Basic, trying not to scare him further. 

_ “Are you hungry, chiquitito? _ ”, Cassian asked with the happy smile she loved so much. 

Jyn felt something dangerously similar to jealousy twisting in her guts upon seeing him give that smile to someone else, while she probably would have to wait until the end of the mission to see it again.

The child nodded vigorously. 

“ _ All right, let's see if we can find some food for you. _ ” Cassian put him down to the ground and kneeled beside him, carefully blocking the way to the door, and he took a one-portion nutrient tablet out of his backpack. “ _ Take this. _ ”

The child remained perfectly still, still not sure if he could trust Cassian. 

“ _ It's food, it's edible. Look, it's not poisoned. _ ” He ripped a small piece off the portion, he ate it and, always smiling, he offered the rest to the child again. “ _ Do you want it? _ ”

The child's defenses crumbled. He grabbed the tablet and devoured it as if he had eaten for days, and his voracity made Jyn wonder how long he had been starving. 

Jyn didn't draw closer and remained silent: she had no idea of how to deal with children, she couldn't speak Rodian and it seemed that Cassian was handling things pretty well. Moreover, him being so zealous towards the tiny stranger was rather fun to watch.

“I think you were right”, Cassian said to her in basic l Basic. Then he spoke again to the child in Rodian: “ _ You should go back to your Mami and Papi, they must be worried. _ ”

A desperate cry echoed in the stairwell, proving him right, and they heard someone running down the stairs. A Rodian woman appeared on the lowest landing. She petrified upon seeing them, terrified, staring at the scene with her enormous blue eyes. 

“ _ Is she your Mami? _ ” 

The child turned to the woman and nodded. 

“ _ It's your Mami hungry, too? _ ”

The child nodded again. 

Cassian took out of his backpack all his nutrient tablets and gave them to the child. “ _ This is all the food I have. Take it to your Mami and make sure you don't run away again, all right? _ ”

The child ran to his mother to give her his treasure, then he turned again towards Cassian and, slipping away from the woman's you, he ran back to him. Cassian hadn't stood yet, and the child brushed his tiny hand on his still wet beard. “ _ Wknuto _ .  _ Thank you. _ ” 

“ _ You're welcome, mi amigo.” _

The child went back to his mother but this time he took her hand and let her lead him upstairs, still staring at Cassian. The mother looked like someone who had just escaped the firing squad and she disappeared as fast as she could without saying a word, dragging her son with her. 

Cassian remained still until they were out of view, then he stood and the smile disappeared from his face. He timidly glanced at Jyn, hesitating as if about to ask for her approval of his behaviour. “Please, don't tell anything to Draven. I've just broken a dozen rules about familiarisation and frugal employment of resources.”

During those few minutes, it had stopped raining and the daylight shone on the pavement, drying the road and making the air even more humid. 

Cassian went up the stairs and Jyn followed him. “ We had better go to the higher floors, so as to have a better view of the palace. We must also make sure we have a viable escape route, though, should we be discovered.”

One of the apartments on the sixth floor was just what they needed: it was completely uninhabited, high enough to offer a privileged view of the city and the Presidential Palace, with a window overlooking the verdant roof of the adjacent building, which might be a viable escape route in case of necessity. 

The apartment was small. It had a lobby, a room, and a bathroom without running water, where the previous inhabitants, who had probably been squatters as much as them, had installed a small tank to gather rainwater. Jyn trembled with satisfaction at the though that they would be able to maintain some level of personal hygiene. 

They left all the equipment they had brought with them orderly piled in a corner, then Cassian attached a heavy lock to the old wooden door, he gave her a spare key and they headed back to the spaceport to get Bodhi and the rest of their stuff.

They were followed down the stairs by the small Rodian until Cassian stopped to rebuff him. “ _ I thought I told you to stay with your Mami. Wandering around is dangerous for children as young as you.” _

The child ignored the tirade and hid behind the handrail. Finally, he spoke with a high-pitched, unsure voice: “ _ What's your name? _ ”

Cassian answered without a moment of hesitation. “ _ My name is Joreth and this is my friend Keri. She can't speak Rodian, but she's nice anyway. What's your name?” _

_ “...Meelo…” _

_ “That's a really nice name. You must do me a favour now, though, Meelo. Go back to your Mami or she'll get angry at me. All right?” _

_ “Will you come back?” _

_ “I'll come back. Keri and I must go shopping and then we'll come back. I can't go without knowing you're with your Mami, though.” _

_ “All right…” _ Meelo ran up the stairs, stopping just once to glance at Cassian. 

Jyn dared to chuckle. “I think he loves your beard.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“And, as I told you already, I really hate Keri.”

Cassian smirked at her. “Forgive me. You’ll get to choose the names for the next mission, I promise.”

They exited the building without being seen. Luckily, the entrance to the decaying building faced a deserted back alley, not a crowded main road. They folded their tunics into a hood again, both to avoid being recognized and being taken by surprise by the next downpour. 

The crowd had thinned slightly and Cassian didn't feel the need to direct Jyn holding her by the elbow anymore: he knew she was perfectly capable of finding her way without him, he had just been terrified to lose her in the multitude of people. 

Suddenly, though, he grabbed by the waist and he pushed her forward.

Jyn was startled. “What's happening?” No answer. She noticed that the other bystanders had abruptly started to disperse and she glanced around more carefully. She understood with a jolt: a squadron of the local militia, dressed in their signature electric blue uniforms, had surrounded a low building covered in ivy and they were raising it. 

Before they managed to put some distance between themselves and the raid, the soldiers pushed out of the building a whole family of Duros, adults, elderly people and children, beating the slow ones with the butt of their rifles. It seemed that some  _ conscientious citizen _ had called the infamous emergency number. 

Three months earlier, she wouldn't have noticed the injustice before her eyes, she would've thought that the family had had it coming since they hadn't had the courage to flee a dangerous planet such as Itani, since they had attracted too much attention, since they hadn't lowered their heads. Now, though, she realized that the family's only fault had been to be born on the wrong species. She couldn't just do nothing. “Cassian…”

“There's nothing we can do, there's too many of them”, he answered, tightening his hold on her and dragging her forward. 

Jyn couldn't help looking back and she saw that the family was being loaded on a truck like cattle. That was the danger Cassian had tried to protect Meelo from.

A young man refused to get onto the truck, he started fighting with a guard, a scuffle started…

“Come on, Jyn, don't stop…”

A gunshot. The few people remaining on the street started shouting and running around then, but she stopped for a heartbeat to look back, ignoring Cassian, who kept pulling her.

The young man lay on the ground, dead, his skull destroyed, his brain splattered on the pavement, his empty, unseeing eyes seemingly staring at her.

“Jyn, I beg you...”

Cassian was right in wanting her to hurry. It wouldn’t do to be the last ones to flee the road, so she finally grabbed his hand and started running beside him, far away from the building covered in ivy, far away from the militia, far away from the ailing family.


	9. The roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New acquaintances. Not all of them nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I didn't mean to make such a big iatus, but RL got in the way, as it is wont to do...  
> I am also not completely happy with this chapter but that's why I'm a scientist and not a writer, I guess...

The first few hours on Itani had gone relatively well: nobody had noticed them, everything had gone according to plan, even though the face of the young dead Duros and his family’s cries had carved themselves into Jyn’s brain.

Everything had gone too well and Jyn should have suspected that before the end of the day she would stare to the wrong end of a rifle’s barrel.

She had grown complacent living with the Rebels, where for almost two months nobody had threatened to kill her. So when, while going back to base with Bohdi, dripping rain and loaded with baggage, they found in front of them a bony and shaky Rodian standing on the first landing and holding them at gunpoint with an ancient firearm, she took half a second too long to react.

She let drop her bags full of food and threw herself on Bodhi to shield him. She begged the Force that Cassian, the last one to enter, not be in the line of fire and while she was still falling she stilled herself for the infernal burning sensation of a blaster wound.

_ Click. _

The burning sensation didn’t come.

_ Click. Click click. _

The rifle had jammed.

She left Bodhi on the ground and she dashed up the stairs, towards the Rodian. Vaguely, she heard Cassian shout at her to stop. The man shook even more but tightened his grip on the rifle, frantically pulling the trigger. Six more steps and she could disarm him. He pointed the rifle right in her face. Four steps. If the rifle had unjammed now she would be dead. Two steps.

The Rodian pulled the trigger in the same moment in which she grabbed the gun barrel.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that burns hurt like hell. The pain, though, is not proportional to the quantity of blood spilled. This is particularly true when flesh is hit by a packet of ionized air that immediately cauterizes the wound, like in the case of a blaster wound.

So Jyn was not particularly worried when she felt her temple started feeling like it were on fire, even though she could not completely stifle a cry of pain. Her head had not exploded, the pain meant she was still alive. Excellent. She finished the fluid movement she had started before the gunshot and snatched the rifle from the man’s hands. He fell on the ground like a ragdoll.

The old barrel had heated up because of the shot, now the palm of her hand was on fire, too.

_ ‘Ouch _ .’

Jyn let the rifle fall on the ground. The palm of her hand was quickly becoming red but it didn’t burn nearly as much as her temple. “What is your problem, man?!?”, she roared at the Rodian.

Cassian appeared beside her in a whirlwind of clothes. He looked positively distraught. “Are you injured?”

Without waiting for an answer, he delicately took her face into his hands to examine her better. Despite herself, Jyn grunted in pain: the pain had already spread to her neck and even the light touch of Cassian’s fingers was unbearable. She tried to retreat but he let her go only after he’d made sure that the injury was not serious. “Luckily it’s just a scratch.”

“Good. It stings like hell, though.”

For a split second, she thought Cassian might smile at her, but then he turned and with a calm but icy tone he spoke to the disarmed Rodian, who was still on the ground and stared with terror at the few drops of blood on Jyn’s neck. “ _ Are you Meelo’s father?” _

“... _ Yes… _ ”

“ _ What did we ever do to you? I feed your son and this is how you repay me, trying to kill my friend?” _

The Rodian managed to pull himself back to his feet and answered scornfully: “ _ Humans are all the same. By this time tomorrow, you will rat on us, if you haven’t already _ .”

Cassian mulled on his words for a few seconds, then he sighed and asked: “ _ Is this what you think of us?” _ He shook his head, took the discarded rifle from the floor and fumbled with it with military efficiency. Then, always calm and emotionless, he offered the weapon to the Rodian. “ _ There you go. It will not jam again. _ ”

Jyn was about to protest that arming a terrified man seemed like the worst idea, but as soon as he put his hands on his rifle the Rodian calmed down and for the first time he was able to look at Cassian straight in the eye. “ _ Why?” _

“ _ Because my friends and I have no desire to report on your family or hurt you in any way. We just want to mind our own business. _ ”

“ _ How do I know this is not a trick? That you aren’t like everybody else? _ ”

“ _ You can’t know, you need to trust my word as I must trust yours. I promise you that none of us want to hurt your family. I need your promise that you won’t harm a hair on my friends’ heads _ .”

  
  


The man had widened his huge eyes even more and had mulled in silence on Cassian’s words for a few seconds. Then, suddenly, he’d nodded and he had disappeared up the stairs, with an apologetic glance towards Jyn.

Cassian’s bet had worked, the Rodian had trusted him. ‘ _ He has the face of a friend _ ’, Baze had said. Cassian was a master at fooling people he'd just met into trusting him, she knew that firsthand.

Her head wound still hurt despite the Bacta and her right palm was covered in blisters but, at Cassian’s insistence, on that first evening, they had left a bag of food in front of the door of the apartment occupied by the Rodians, at the eighth and last floor, as a sign of friendship.

While they ate in silence, dead tired, a loud siren filled the sunset, signaling the beginning of the curfew. Jyn almost felt sick upon hearing it: the sound was almost the same as the one used in the prison camp on Wobani. ‘ _ It feels like a lifetime ago, but only three months have gone by... _ ’

After dinner, while Cassian helped Bodhi installing the surveillance equipment, Jyn sneaked out of the door without being noticed. The food bags in front of Meelo’s door had vanished, but she hadn’t gone up to check. Earlier she’d noticed that the stairs went on up after the last landing towards an old door wedged into the ceiling.

That was her objective.

She paused with her hand on the handle of the ancient wooden thing, hesitating for a single heartbeat. Then, with her usual passion, she threw the door open.

What she saw was absolutely breathtaking.

She had arrived at the roof, where shrubs and weeds of all kind sprawled freely, watered by the frequent showers and fertilized by the droppings of the colorful birds infesting the city. In front of her lay the night skyline of New Sabanna, glistening under the light of the moons. Jyn sat down between the fragrant plants, feeling suddenly serene.

There was nothing that made her feel at peace like looking at the night sky. She tried to recognize the constellations her father had invented for her, but this stupid planet was too far away from Lah’mu. She studied the brightest stars one by one, trying to memorize their position on the celestial sphere

One star, in particular, called her attention. It glowed bluer than the others and Jyn stared at it trying to pry its secrets. If one stares into the sky for too long, one has the illusion that the stars are coming closer, calling you and…

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Jyn jumped to her feet with a swear, unsheathing her gun with the same movement: she had been so taken up with the spectacle that she hadn’t noticed the trespasser behind her.

Said trespasser, seeing the blaster, raised her hands holding her breath, scared half to death. She was a Rodian, and in the dim light of the moons she looked younger than Meelo’s mother, but just as skeletal. A part of Jyn’s brain was astonished that she was speaking Basic. “Who are you?”

Despite her eyes were opened wide in fear, her voice was steady. “I’m sorry, I should have announced myself. My name is Serleena, Meelo is my nephew. You are Keri, am I right?”

Jyn lowered her blaster, but she didn’t sheath it yet. “Yes, that’s me.”

Serleena glanced around uneasily, coughing lightly. “Ehm, it’s such a nice view, don’t you agree?”

Jyn mulled on it a little more, then she put her blaster away. “Yes, I do.”

The woman offered her an uncertain smile. “Thanks for what you and your man have done. I’m sorry for the greeting my brother-in-law gave you, he is always extremely anxious because Meelo runs away at least three times a day.”

Jyn felt her face redden suddenly. “You’re welcome, but… Joreth is not my man.”

“He isn’t? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be indiscreet… I had assumed he was because he came to look for you, he seemed rather worried...”

“He came to...” Karabast, she hadn’t told the control maniac where she was headed, she had even slipped out without him noticing. Actually, she wasn’t even sure how long she had been up here on the roof, she had completely lost track of time. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. “I must go.” She headed for the stairs, but she in front of the door she turned briefly towards the Rodian. “Ehm… Thanks.”

Serleena nodded in response. “You’re welcome.”

Jyn opened the door very carefully. Cassian was on the lower landing, involved in a heated discussion with Meelo’s parents. She tried to walk downstairs as quietly as she could to be noticed as late as possible but Serleena had the brilliant idea of crying out in Rodian: “ _ Joreth, I found her! _ ”

Cassian turned in a jolt and his eyes warmed in relief for a split second before he schooled his features into the much hated “spy face”. He heartedly thanked Meelo’s family and then together, in silence, they took the stairs down without saying a word. This was far from a good sign and Jyn readied herself for a rant.

As soon as she crossed the door of their new home, Bodhi surprised her with a shaky hug. “Jyn, where were you? You didn’t tell us anything...”

Jyn smiled at him, peeking at Cassian who looked livid and still hadn’t said a word. “I just went to the roof to look at the stars. I’m sorry you were worried, Bodhi...”

“He was not the only one to be worried.” Cassian’s voice was a sharp hiss, his eyes were bright with anger. “You should have warned us.”

Jyn got out of Bodhi’s hug to look at Cassian in the face. She stroke back because that was the only thing she knew how to do when under pressure. “Oh, really? Last time I checked, I was a free woman and I could do as I please.”

Cassian lowered his voice even more, he was agitated and his accent was much thicker than usual. “Jyn, we are on a planet controlled by the Empire, in a city under curfew, in a building that is held upright by a miracle where the only inhabitants are us and a family of paranoid non-humans, is it really too much to ask you to try not to get into trouble in any occasion that presents itself to you?”

“I don’t get into trouble!”

“Do you know what the Rodians thought when I went to ask about you? That you’d surely gone to rat them out to the militia. The man we met earlier was about to get his rifle to run after you! We are not at home, we are on a mission, and, as much as I may trust you, for the sake of the mission I need to always be able to find you.”

Jyn raised her voice even more, now she was almost shouting. “Oh, we are talking about the sake of the mission, now? You’ve been limping for hours, don’t think I didn’t notice, and you sat down only to eat. Is this good for the mission?”

With great satisfaction, she noticed that Cassian lost a beat. “You are not my mother.”

“Nor you are mine!”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”, Bodhi roared. “Each of you is worried for the other, we get it, but-but now stop it, don’t you realize that going on like this is counterproductive? We are all tired. Now I give an order: let’s go to bed!”

Jyn and Cassian stared at him perplexed, both of them now more surprised by the sudden interruption than angry.

Bodhi made a self-conscious gulp and, wringing his hands, he added: “P-p-please?”

Cassian nodded and turned back to Jyn with a contrite and embarrassed face, which probably mirrored hers. Now that the anger was gone neither of them could bear to look at the other, while during the discussion they had never broken eye contact. Jyn was the first to realize that in the heat of the argument they had drifted too close, invading each other’s personal space. She immediately stepped back and ran away to the other room so that her friends wouldn’t see the bright red on her cheeks.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New characters! Yey!

**Author's Note:**

> As soon as I saw him, Cassian seemed to me the typical Le Carrè male protagonist: tall, handsome, brooding, who has a hard time coming to terms with his own conscience even though he acts for what he believes is the greater good. The only thing missing to have a perfect correspondence is "great in bed", but I don't think Disney will ever disclose this information about the character.
> 
> So, after devising a way to save Jyn and Cassian, and Bodhi with them (I'm so glad I saved Bodhi, by the way, poor Bodhi), this story came into my mind, (very) freely inspired by pieces of "The Spy who came in from the Cold", "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "The Little Drummer Girl".
> 
> I absolutely can't claim to be as good a writer as Le Carrè, but I have to take this story out of my head or I won't be able to go on with my life.
> 
> P.S. If you happen to need reading tips, read the three books I named earlier. And after "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" read "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People". And if you like them, read "A Perfect Spy", too, which feels as heavy as a boulder for the first 400 pages but in the last 100 you realize it is such a great book that you will find yourselves jumping around with excitement. Ok, maybe I was the only one to jump around, but it's as good book as they come if you like the genre.


End file.
